January 07, 2015

I AM CHARLIE

Hooded, black-clad gunmen burst into the office of provocative French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing 12…. In the Wednesday attack, the gunmen said "Allahu akbar" -- which translates to "God is great" -- and that they were avenging the Prophet Mohammed, Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters. … Charlie Hebdo editor and cartoonist Stephane Charbonnier, known as "Charb," is among the dead in the attack, a police spokesman in the district where the office is located told CNN. At least three other well-known cartoonists -- known by the pen names Cabu, Wolinski and Tignous -- were also killed. … Charlie Hebdo is no stranger to controversy for having lampooned a variety of subjects, including Christianity. But what it's done on Islam has gotten the most attention and garnered the most vitriol. … Earlier cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed -- depictions that are deplored by Muslims -- spurred protests and the burning of the magazine's office three years ago.

Below are some of the Cox & Forkum cartoons about the Danish Muhammed cartoon controversy in 2006. See the original posts (links below each cartoon) for the news articles and editorials to which the cartoons related:

I see all these teary candlelit vigils and everyone suddenly claiming to be for freedom of speech. I think a consequence of this is a lot of people will retreat even further into self-censorship. The New York Daily News ...dishonors the dead in Paris by not even showing properly the cartoons. They pixelated Muhammad out of, it so it looks like Muhammad is in the witness protection program. …

Yes, they [Charlie Hebdo] were very brave. This was the only publication that was willing to publish the Muhammad — the Danish Muhammad cartoons in 2006 because they decided to stand by those Danish cartoonists. I'm proud to have written for the only Canadian magazine to publish those Muhammad cartoons. And it's because The New York Times didn't and because Le Monde in Paris didn't, and the London Times didn't and all the other great newspapers of the world didn't - only Charlie Hebdo and my magazine in Canada and a few others did. But they were forced to bear a burden that should have been more widely dispersed...

We will be retreating into a lot more self-censorship if the pansified Western media doesn't man up and decide to disburse the risk so they can't kill one small, little French satirical magazine. They've gotta kill all of us.

[T]he most significant criticism of Islam in past weeks came not from traditional critics in Europe, but from inside the Islamic world itself, in the form of a speech, little-reported in the West, by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Muslim clerics in Egypt. It was, as Roger Simon notes, a call for "a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam."

The aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack has brought an encouraging reaction. You can see it on the streets of Paris and other cities. Last week, tens thousands of people joined vigils in solidarity with the murdered journalists. ... For the Je Suis Charlie phenomenon to translate into a strengthening of freedom of speech, a great deal depends on the conclusions people form and act on going forward.

Charlie Hebdo’s defiant new issue sold out before dawn around Paris on Wednesday, with scuffles at kiosks over dwindling copies of the paper fronting the Prophet Muhammad. … The core of the irreverent newspaper’s staff perished a week ago when gunmen stormed its offices, killing 12. Those who survived put out the issue that appeared on newsstands Wednesday, working out of borrowed offices, with a print run of 3 million — more than 50 times the usual circulation.

Under extraordinary circumstances, the surviving staff of Charlie Hebdo has produced an issue that is perfectly true to type: defiant, uncompromising, funny, sometimes bittersweet, but with nary a hint of the melodramatic. None of the murdered staffers are left out and, just as they would have liked, no target for ridicule is spared. …

In his lead editorial, Editor-in-chief Biard waxed ironic about how “for the past week, Charlie, an atheist newspaper, has been accomplishing more miracles than all of the saints and prophets united.” What made the staffers of his “atheist newspaper” laugh most this week, he writes, was the bells of Notre-Dame chiming in the weekly’s honor. Biard thanks the supporters who “sincerely and deeply ‘are Charlie.’ And we say screw the other ones, who couldn’t give a toss anyway.”

“In recent years, we’ve felt a little alone,” Biard explains, recalling previous threats and attacks against Charlie Hebdo, including a 2011 firebombing of its offices, and calling out those who would describe his staffers as “Islamophobes, Christian-phobics, provocateurs, casters of oil on the fire, racists, you-had-it-coming.” He chides critics long equivocal about the threats Charlie faced: “Yes, we condemn terrorism, but. Yes, threatening cartoonists with death isn’t good, but. Yes, burning down a newspaper is bad, but.”